writing

This was the first time I realized that boys could do things that girls were not allowed to do and it was so not fair. My mom agreed and so her and my maternal Grandfather went out and bought me a tricycle

Mr. Anders had seen a family tossed out by hired men just hours after the father had been killed in a mine explosion. A woman heavy with child and four little children with nowhere to go tossed out like garbage. He could still hear her crying and screaming in Italian not understanding what was happening.

Could this child be a relative, maybe a distant cousin with those blonde eyelashes like mine and that nose that looks like my son’s? I don’t recollect any family in the Scott’s Run area but sometimes families traveled when a mine closed.

She pushed her hand into her bag to touch the gun. She always brought it with her as she watched. Not sure if she would ever have the courage to use it but knowing deep down that it might actually be her savior one day. Her savior, like she had thought him to be.

Today’s guest on Writers Talking is Heather Christie author of What the Valley Knows. Heather Christie grew up in rural Pennsylvania and, at age seventeen, took off for New York City in hopes of becoming a movie star. Flash forward several decades, a couple degrees, a bunch of cats, two kids and one husband later, she’s back…

old oak table with three drawers. It was made by my husband’s great-grandfather to house linens for a dining room. I’ve repurposed it as storage and the top holds two paper cutters, a typewriter, the telephone, the pencil sharpener, and …